That's Beautiful

            We read Psalm 27 in church last week.  As we were reading it, one phrase caught my attention.  It’s from verse four, which says

            One thing I ask from the Lord,

                        this only do I seek:

            that I may dwell in the house of the Lord

                        all the days of my life,

            to gaze on the beauty of the Lord

                        and to seek him in his temple

            The phrase that caught my attention was “the beauty of the Lord”.  Have you ever thought of God as beautiful?  If you have, I’ll bet it’s not very often.  We talk about lots of other things about God.  We talk about the power of God.  We talk about the wisdom of God.  We talk about the glory of God.  We talk about the love of God.  We talk about the righteousness of God.  We almost never talk about the beauty of God.

            When we think about it, though, God must be beautiful.  After all, God, by definition, is perfect.  How could something perfect not be beautiful?

            We are not able, in this life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord.  We see God’s beauty all around us, though.  Don’t get me wrong—the beauty of nature is not the same as the beauty of God.  I do think, however, that the beauty of nature, the beauty of the things God created, gives us a glimpse of God’s beauty.  The beauty of the sunrise shows the beauty of God.  So does the beauty of a rainbow.  So does the beauty of a field of sunflowers in full bloom.  So does the beauty of the mountains, or the ocean, or of deer, or of pheasants, or of anything else that’s beautiful.

            That includes you and me.  We were created to be beautiful, too.  And we are.  You’re beautiful.  So am I.

            Some people might not think it, to look at us.  I know they wouldn’t think it of me.  I’m not saying I think I’m ugly, but I certainly wouldn’t win any male beauty pageants.  Maybe you think the same of yourself.  Maybe you think even worse of yourself.  You’ve heard the old phrase, “beauty is only skin deep”, but maybe you don’t think of yourself as beautiful on the inside, either.  Maybe you don’t see how anyone, if they really knew you, could consider you beautiful.

            Well, God knows you.  And God says you’re beautiful.  God says that everything God created is good and lovely and beautiful.  That includes you.  That includes me, too.

            If you don’t feel that, gaze on some of the beauty that God created.  Then remember that God created you, too.  The same God that created all this beauty created you.  That means you must be beautiful, too.  You are good and lovely and beautiful.  And you always will be.